Using Subexpressions Within Strings In Powershell

The aim of this page📝 is to share the use and weirdness of PowerShell’s Subexpression operator $( ) notation. Weird, because if you are combining the use of a subexpression operator with a variable name — it's "two dollars" $($. In bash, there indeed is command substitution and this is somewhat similar.

echo "the length is $($list.length)"
echo "today is $(Get-Date)"

• the following example is used for a logger to stdout when printing a many jobs at once and I want to see the progress (e.g job# 3/15)

$i = 1
foreach ($jobId in $jobIds) {
    if($jobIds.length -gt 1) {
        Write-Host "-- Dwarf Counts: Job #${i}/$($jobIds.length) --" -backgroundcolor DarkYellow-foregroundcolor Magenta
        $i++
        Pause}
}

LINKS

• PowerShell: Using Subexpressions Within Strings
• Subexpression operator $( ) < about Operators < Microsoft Docs
• string interpolation — PowerShell outputting array items when interpolating within double quotes — Stack Overflow